Ukraine's former President Viktor Yanukovych winks at Russia's President Vladimir Putin during a signing ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, on December 17, 2013 | Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

Former Austrian chancellor appears to have lobbied as part of Manafort scheme

Paul Manafort ‘secretly retained’ several former senior European politicians to covertly promote Ukrainian interests in Washington.

New filings made public by special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday shed fresh light on the Washington lobbying campaign orchestrated by Paul Manafort on behalf of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his allies.

Manafort “secretly retained” several former senior European politicians to covertly promote Ukrainian interests in Washington. “Although the former politicians would appear to be providing their independent assessments of government of Ukraine actions, in fact they were paid lobbyists for Ukraine,” according to a superseding indictment of Manafort filed by Mueller’s team.

The coterie of Europeans was known as the Hapsburg Group, Andrew Weissman, one of Mueller’s prosecutors, said at a hearing on Friday. The group was led by a “former European chancellor” and was paid more than €2 million in 2012 and 2013, according to the court filings.

The former chancellor isn’t named in the court filings, but appears to be Alfred Gusenbauer, who served as chancellor of Austria between 2007 and 2008. Gusenbauer and two lobbyists involved in Manafort’s lobbying campaign met with members of Congress and staffers in 2013, according to Justice Department disclosures retroactively filed last year by the lobbying firm Mercury.

Manafort called the Hapsburg Group’s lobbying effort “SUPER VIP” in an “EYES ONLY” memo cited in the new indictment. It would involve “a small group of high-level European highly influencial [sic] champions and politically credible friends who can act informally and without any visible relationship with the Government of Ukraine,” he said.

The retroactively filed disclosures show that Gusenbauer met with House foreign affairs committee Chairman Ed Royce, Representatives Tom Marino (R-Pa.) and Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), House foreign affairs committee staffers and others in Washington one week in 2013. He was accompanied by two Mercury lobbyists, Ed Kutler (who has since left the firm) and Mike McSherry. Kutler also accompanied Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister, to meetings with Royce and a staffer for House Majority Whip Eric Cantor months beforehand.

Neither Gusenbauer nor Prodi could be reached immediately for comment.

The Hapsburg Group’s efforts were just one part of a larger lobbying campaign masterminded by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych. It included two Washington lobbying firms, Mercury and the Podesta Group, that Manafort hired to lobby on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, an ostensibly independent group that was really controlled by Yanukovych and his allies, according to Mueller.

Prosecutors have only charged Manafort and his protégé, Rick Gates, in connection with the lobbying efforts. Manafort continues to maintain his innocence.

Gates admitted on Friday that he lied to Mueller’s team earlier this month about Mercury’s lobbying efforts and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation.

Gates misled investigators about a March 2013 meeting between Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.); former Representative Vin Weber (R-Minn.), who's now a lobbyist at Mercury; and Manafort, which took place a few months before Gusenbauer’s lobbying blitz of Capitol Hill. He told investigators that Manafort had told him there was no discussion of Ukraine at the meeting. But Weber and Manafort never said that, according to Mueller, and instead told Gates that the meeting went well. Gates later helped Manafort prepare a report on the meeting for the Ukrainians.

It’s unclear why Gates would lie to investigators — including FBI agents — about the meeting. Both Mercury and Manafort disclosed the meeting last year in retroactive filings detailing their foreign lobbying work.

In an interview with POLITICO last year, Rohrabacher said he and Manafort, who have known each other for decades, had dinner together in March 2013 at the Capitol Hill Club.

“In retrospect, I don’t remember him talking about specifically who it was who had given him a contract,” Rohrabacher said. “Frankly, I don’t remember if it was the Russians or the Ukrainians. … He certainly wasn’t trying to twist my arm on any policy issue.”

Ken Grubbs, a Rohrabacher spokesman, confirmed that account on Friday. "Dana recollects the meeting as mostly about politics, old times," Grubbs said. (Rohrabacher and Weber served in Congress together, and the three men have known each other for decades.) "Ukraine came up in passing."

The new indictment also provides fresh details about the work that Mercury and the Podesta Group did on Manafort’s behalf. Staffers at the firms — identified only as Company A and Company B — “viewed the Centre as a fig leaf,” according to Mueller. “As a Company A employee noted to another employee: Gates was lobbying for the Centre ‘in name only. [Y]ou’ve gotta see through the nonsense of that[.]”

Neither Mercury nor the Podesta Group registered as foreign agents for their work on behalf of the Centre, as required by law for firms representing foreign governments or political parties in Washington, until last year.

Mike McKeon, a Mercury partner, said on Friday the firm had been misled by Manafort and Gates.

Gates “admitted that he didn’t tell the truth to the Government and didn’t tell the truth to our lawyers when he spoke to them about this project,” McKeon wrote in email to POLITICO. “While he and others involved with this matter may have acted criminally and tried to hide it, we have acted appropriately, following our counsel’s advice from the start. We will continue to cooperate with the Special Counsel because we are confident we acted appropriately throughout.”

Emanuele

great article!
but as an Austrian i object to one sentence: “..who served as chancellor of Austria between 2007 and 2008”, because its not clear enough. it doesn t specify that, like all our politicians, they served themselves! naive readers could get the impression that they served the Austrian people..

Posted on 2/24/18 | 5:03 PM CET

Veritas-Semper

Hey Politico, what are you hiding?

How come you did not list Kwasniewski (former president of Poland) hailing from the Communist Party as one of the “recipients” of Manafort’s lobbying work?